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Vinegar is your friend

Playa dust is alkaline/saline in composition. It is very drying and rather corrosive. That’s where vinegar comes in. Alkaline soils have a high pH. Vinegar is a weak acid, which means it has a low pH. Acid will neutralize a base. Thus all of the recommendations to take vinegar to Burning Man.

I take a gallon of white vinegar for general rinsing needs. I dilute it with water and put it in spray bottles or my garden sprayer. I particularly use it on my bike. I’m one of the crazy people who brings a nice bike to BRC. Before I leave home, I double-coat it in silicone spray and lube the clean chain with ceramic chain lube. Once I am at Burning Man, I spray and rinse my bike every time I come back to camp from a ride. I spray vinegar water all over it, especially the metal moving parts, then rinse it with a little plain water to get as much of the neutralized playa dust (mud) off. Rinsing is important, because vinegar can also corrode metal parts if it doesn’t all get neutralized in the reaction. Make sure your mixture is very dilute (doesn’t take much vinegar to neutralize the dust).

I take a bottle of organic apple cider vinegar for my skin. Again, I dilute it with water and put it in spray bottles. I have little bottles to carry with me and larger bottles for a full rinse off at camp. Good way to start a shower too. And vinegar kills athletes foot, so if you always put it between your toes when you get out of the shower, you will never have athletes foot again.

Apple cider vinegar is good for you, so splash a bit into a drink now and then.

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